


I Can Barely Say

by Rancid_Rat6186



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And get all the hugs you deserve, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers Feels, Captain America Steve Rogers, M/M, Oh Bucky, One day you'll be happy, POV Bucky Barnes, Pining, Some canon parts, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, sad bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rancid_Rat6186/pseuds/Rancid_Rat6186
Summary: Steve had been quietly reaching for Bucky. All this time. And, Bucky had been so lost in the aftermath of all this world had taken from him, he couldn't see the guiding light that had always illuminated his way.His Steve.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration from The Fray's "I Can Barely Say".

_**"I said I've told you everything** _

_**But, I left something out** _

_**Underneath the stairwell"** _

 

* * *

 

 

The brush of fall closing in tiptoed along the Brooklyn sidewalks. What leaves couldn't hold on had fallen to their untimely demise of brittle browns and decaying greens, scattered across the uneven slabs of concrete. Nighttime had found it's way to the world sooner than usual, letting that cooled air settle in around. Yellowing streetlights dimmed their way along the quieting city blocks.

Bucky's ragged boots dug along the emptying sidewalks, scuffing his wandering path. A patch of duct tape on his left foot held his toes in place, sheltered from the outside chill. His jeans had been pulled off of a clothing rack in the furthest corner of some hand me down shop along his travels. His jacket, bought from a homeless man for a pint of some cheap booze Bucky slipped off the shelf in a liquor store down the street. The hat, well, Bucky honestly couldn't remember that one. The shirt, either. It had far too many holes in it, at this point, to properly be called a shirt anymore.

The scruff on his face itched, that uncomfortable shift between needing to shave and falling warmly behind a full on beard. It hid the sunken in cheek bones, at least. The dark purple underneath his eyes, well, that's what his shaggy hair was for. A curtain to hide himself behind.

His fear?

That someone would look into his eyes and see the kind of person he really is. All the things he had done. All the horrors he had witnessed. All the horrors he had created...


	2. Two

_**"I'm under lock and key** _

_**But, you can probably tell** _

_**A powder keg in a prison cell"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky had done so many things. So many things. Good. Bad. Horrific. Mostly horrific.

But, if everything else falls away, and the only thing he has left to call upon, his one last good memory, it would be the first time he saw Steve, saw his smile. It was on that playground in a back corner of Brooklyn, when neither of them had most of their top front teeth grown back in, or even all the way out, in Bucky's case. Blood was still dripping down both of their noses and chins after some stupid fist fight broke out, one that Steve tried to defend someone almost twice his own size and Bucky had stumbled upon him, dirty and sprawled out on the ground before Steve's wirey legs shot back and sprung his tiny frame back up, clenched fists raised and ready, the deepest of blue eyes narrowed and so sure. If Bucky hadn't stepped in, who knows what may have happened. But, he had been planning on knocking out that loose front tooth of his, anyways.

Afterwards? Yeah, afterwards, the both of them had found themselves giggling into one another's shoulders without a care in the world, having found a soulmate before they knew what those even were. Blood stained and dirtied torn up shirts, ruffled hair, and matching toothless smiles. That is where Bucky would want to live, spend the rest of his life, replaying that moment over and over again. One single frame from years ago.

So many years ago.   
So many lifetimes ago.

They both had lived lifetimes since then, since one speck of a moment on their vast horizon of their own timelines. Sure, they always talked about the end of the line, but...for Bucky, that line ended the moment his fingers failed to grasp onto Steve's on that damn mountain side.

That moment, that single moment, steered Bucky away from that perfect ending to a far off future with Steve smiling happily by his side, both toothless and carefree, old men and both so content with how their lives turned out. No. That moment took away all those things Bucky once saw for himself and charred the remains of that endless line he walked along with Steve. The end of the line had ended, and Bucky would forever be scraping his nails to the bloodied dull edges trying to find his way back, if ever at all.


	3. Three

_**"I wanna return** _

_**But, all you would do is turn to leave** _

_**If I can find my way back home** _

_**Will you take hold of me?"** _

 

* * *

 

 

No. This wasn't who he used to be. This wasn't the warmth Bucky bathed in that Steve created, the smile that shone bright even against cloudless sunny skies and endlessly clear starry nights. This wasn't the way a deep laughter billowed out from a scrawny frame, or the way skin crinkled around the deepest of blues and sparkled under flops of the lightest blonde waves.

No. This wasn't who Bucky used to be. Carefree and vibrant, curious and loving, all beautiful things because something more beautiful bled life into his veins, into his world.

Wait, was he ever those things? Could someone like him, now, ever have been those things?


	4. Four

_**"'Cuz I've been gone so long** _

_**I can barely say** _

_**All I know is now I wanna stay."** _

 

* * *

 

 

The city was never truly quiet, not in the sense of absolute silence. No. But, there was a softness the cooler weather muted over the city. Maybe, it was that so many people sought shelter, sought warmth, sought some sort of reprieve from the harsher weather still yet to come.

The cold never bothered him.

Not anymore.

Not like it used to.

No. The cold was something he knew. Something familiar. And, the violent memories the cold brought along with it? Well, Bucky deserved them. All of them. He found himself welcoming the cold each year since escaping those who held everything from him, against him. That cold was a reminder of who he really was, exactly what kind of legacy he was leaving on this world. The cold was painful, but a pleasure pain that Bucky found solace in...because, it was the only truth he knew.

It was the only truth that made sense.


	5. Five

_**"Has it been too long** _

_**Since I went away** _

_**'Cuz I'm trying to find the words** _

_**But, I can barely say"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky hadn't known Steve had crashed into the ice. He hadn't known Steve was lost from the world, trapped in a freezing jail with no escape. Not until a trip to some museum that housed and told the story, their story, of a bond that wove and carved it's way through history. But, Bucky couldn't ease the grip held over his heart. Not for the memories of a life that felt so far away. No. For the harsh realization that Steve had suffered the way Bucky had suffered. Surrounded by a translucent prison of cold and fear, the world they knew ripped from their grasps.

They were the same.

Except, they weren't.

They never were. No. Steve was always too destined for a world of wanderlust and beauty, colors interwoven amongst themselves, even if they had been narrowed to only dulled shades of grays and blacks.

Bucky would always watch the way Steve would watch the sun set behind the buildings as they sat out on the fire escape outside of Bucky's bedroom all those summer nights. The way Steve's head would tilt to the left as he watched the sun sizzle into the horizon, where the water met with the sky, and their feet skimmed over the surface of the ocean down by the docks. The way Steve's eyes flickered and followed the leaves as they rattled along with the wind as the Earth shivered in the impending cold seasons.

Bucky knew Steve couldn't see the colors the world had to offer...but, Bucky knew he could never see the world the way Steve would always find it...and he was damn sure that the world would never find names for all the colors that were so uniquely Steve...the colors he always was, always would be.


	6. Six

_**"I used to be the sun** _

_**Waiting silently** _

_**But, they barely noticed me"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky may have been the protector and provider for Steve throughout their youth and early adulthood, but Steve would always be the light and warmth for Bucky, radiating out from behind the darkest shadows. Steve may have not been able to see golden rays the sun would shine down on them. But, Bucky sure as hell would tell Steve all about it until his voice faded away into silence. And, then, he would write it for all eternity until his fingers broke away. And, then, he would find a million other ways. Anything to show Steve the beauty of the world that Bucky knew Steve already felt before Bucky could even imagine it.

"Hey, Buck?"

"Yeah, Stevie?"

"What does the sunset look like?"

"What do you mean? It's right here, in front of us."

"No, I...what does the sunset really _look_ like?"

"You know when it's been a really long, really hot summer's day? The sky is so clear and you can feel the sun burning through the top layer of your skin? And we run in between the buildings, trying to catch the shade between the alleyways? And Jerry would toss me an extra 5 cents and a smile after a long week of work, when you would walk down to meet me so we could walk back home together, just so we could stop and split a soda pop from the icebox from Ms. May's shop down the block from home? Just as we finished racing each other to the last sip, the sky would close up and the rain would fall and cool everything down? And we'd run and jump in all the puddles along the street, dodging the cars in the road? We'd both be soaked all the way through, breathless and exhausted, stomachs sore from laughing so much, happy and carefree...thinking for just that moment, nothing in the world could ever break us?"

"Yeah?"

"Like that, Stevie."

"That's not what a sunset _looks_ like, Bucky."

"You asked me what a sunset looked like, and I told you. It looks like every happy moment stretched out across the sky. It doesn't matter what the colors look like. It's what the happy moments are. To me, that's exactly what a sunset looks like. Your favorite moments, painted into the sky."

Bucky can't help but feel the strange pull of his lips at the sudden vivid memory. The stretch of his skin pulls at the chapped curves of his lips. It's unusual, the feeling. Bucky can't remember smiling like this. Not like this, no. Not genuine. Not sincere. But, Steve did always have that power over Bucky. To pull him up from the deepest corners the world had to offer, boost him up and dust him off, kiss away the cuts and scrapes, and send him on his way. Bucky may have always stood a good foot taller than Steve, but it was always Steve that held Bucky up.


	7. Seven

_**"I've been talking in my sleep** _

_**When anybody sees** _

_**They'll turn** _

_**They'll run from me."** _

 

* * *

 

 

Here Bucky is, now, a coward, hiding in the shadowy corners of the buildings across the way from where Steve has been living. Watching, Bucky always watching, as Steve carried on his day to day, building up from the shooken foundation, making a new life for himself, one that Bucky wasn't sure he should fit himself into.

No. Steve had so much life, so much beauty twisted and melted beneath such perfect skin and nestled under such glowing golden locks, wisping and twirling over radiant depths of ocean blue eyes. Bucky could never touch the beauty that was once young Steve Rogers. There was no chance he could ever consider standing in the presence of this newly formed Steve Rogers. He was only so honored and privileged to be able to stand in the same city block as young Steve Rogers. This...this new one...

No. This new one, this national symbol, this heroic icon standing before him...no...Bucky couldn't tarnish that. Let his grubby, blood stained and soaked fingertips dirty the purity of all that Steve Rogers had become. No. All that Steve Rogers had been, all along. Bucky was happy the rest of the world could finally see all the things he saw, but...but, part of him yearned for the tiny, scrawny kid from back in the day. Because, then, Bucky could be the same kid he once was back in that same day, too.

Before the world broke him.

Now, all he's reduced to is a lifetime, no, lifetime _ **S**_ of bitter tasting memories overflowing in notebooks stuffed into his worn out backpack. Words scrawled along the pages on the nights when the memories became too vivid, too real, and he needed a way to get them out...when his voice no longer worked from screaming itself hoarsely and harshly silent.

If only Steve could read them, if Bucky could show him them...then, he would know...he would understand...who Bucky had really become.

And, that Bucky wasn't worth saving.

No. That Bucky, on those pages, was someone worth running from. As fast as possible. In the other direction. There was no safety in Bucky, anymore. There was no protector. There was only orders, and missions, and trigger words, and kills, kills, kills.


	8. Eight

_**"I wanna return** _

_**But, all you would do is turn to leave** _

_**If I can find my way home** _

_**Will you take hold of me?"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Yes, the hope of seeing Steve again, of fighting his way back to that scrawny little shit was what made him get through the long days and endless nights of war. And, when that expanded and double sized version of all his favorite childhood memories ripped those straps off that rusty metal slab of a table, a table riddled with countless expiraments that made his bones ache and chaotic mind erasing methods that tried to rip away that perfectly toothless smile that was etched into Bucky's very core, all attempts to break down the inner essence of who Bucky truly was as a person, as a soul within this world...only then, did Bucky find that small sliver of hope, again.

Only to, then, have it dangled and damn near ripped away with a furnace of flames billowing up between them; metal railings and orange licks; a universe hell bent on keeping them apart. Watching Steve literally fly across the air, reaching out and defying every possible thing Bucky had ever come to understand about logic and physics, landing effortlessly before Bucky on that metal grated ledge. Bucky selfishly believed they may have had a chance, and he absolutely smirked smugly in the face of Fate or whatever bullshit.

And, then, that train.

Steve had asked Bucky to follow him. Bucky would always follow him.

Until...until he couldn't.


	9. Nine

_**"'Cuz I've been gone so long** _

_**I can barely say** _

_**All I know is now I wanna stay** _

_**Has it been too long** _

_**Since I went away** _

_**'Cuz I'm trying to find the words** _

_**But, I can barely say"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky's fingers ached. The flesh and bone ones. The metal ones stayed tucked away in the pocket of his back alley bought jacket, shiny metal hidden away from the world. A world that had been searching for him all over. And, all Bucky wanted was to be left alone. He wanted to will his mind to remember the moments he wanted to crawl back in time and curl up in, let the warmth wash over him, take him away from this lonely reality he had found himself in.

Until, he got that first postcard.

"Come back home, to Brooklyn."

Five words. Printed. Neat and small. Bucky could recognize that handwriting anywhere. He had watched it form from oversized and sloppy letters to the artistic simplicity he never knew letters could have.

Steve's.

One after another, a month's worth of junk mail in between each. Three years across. 4"x6" of cardstock paper, beautiful photographs glossied and scratched from the journey of the postal service. Black smudge marks along the back, always the same five words.


	10. Ten

_**"I wanted to run** _

_**I wanted to love** _

_**And be loved in return** _

_**But, will I ever get back** _

_**Do I know too much to return?"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Almost three years from the first. The leaves had just started to change over when his fingers traced over those black inked words. The season where all that was once beautiful starts to burst into colorful life, before it dies away. And, Bucky can't help but find the irony in that comparison. He refuses to believe it's really Steve, really asking him to come back home...to a home that doesn't exist anymore. Not one that Bucky can be welcomed back to.

So, Bucky tucked away that postcard in the bottom drawer of the small wooden desk he had found by a dumpster in an alleyway six blocks from his tiny studio apartment. Just enough to hold a mattress on the floor, a plate and chipped drinking glass, a broken refrigerator that holds only canned goods, and, now, a tiny 2 drawer wooden desk.

He lets his fingers trace across the glossy finish on the front of the postcard one last time before he closes the drawer on that flickering beacon of hope, snuffing it out for good. If Steve knew where Bucky was, and really wanted him back in his world, he would have come to get him himself.

No. Steve must realize exactly who Bucky truly is, what he has become. Now, he's afraid of Bucky. Of what Bucky could do. Of what Bucky has done. And, with the sharpest stab of acceptance, Bucky swallows down the realization that, no, Bucky Barnes will never belong in a world that Steve Rogers exists within.

Never again.

But, as Bucky's skin frays and parts, dull stinging reaches across the nerves on his skin of his fingers, not realizing the cardstock had sliced into his skin. Red stained the edges of the paper, building on itself as it spread upwards along the thickened paper.

A clear image of symbolism, the dark, forgotten dusty corners of Bucky's mind supplied.

34 postcards total. All with the same five words. Five words Bucky had come to pair with a life built without Steve in it. But, just as the leaves had started to change their tone, Bucky found the 35th postcard.

"Come home to me. Please."

Five words. Still. Always has been five words. But...different. Different. Five words that were able to reach in and pull Bucky out from those same dusty corners of himself and allow the warmth of those golden rays wash over him.

Come.  
Home.  
To.  
Me.

To Steve. To Steve. Home. To Steve. Home could never exist without Steve. Home would never feel whole without Steve there to warm Bucky all over.

No! Bucky can't go home. There is no home for Bucky. Not this version of Bucky. This oversized, broken, shattering version of an old memory he used to be. No. This isn't the Bucky that Steve remembers. This person isn't who Steve is begging to come back home. No.

But, Bucky goes. Not to Steve, no. To the shadows falling down from the buildings across the way. Where he watches. Day in and day out. Something, anything, to feel close to Steve again. Even if there's decades of distances between them. Lives spread unevenly around, lumps and air bubbles, gooey frosting dripping off the sides of the cake Bucky could never wait for them to cool fully before coating it with the frosting. Licking the melted sugar from his fingertips one at a time. Only, the sugar has soured, decayed in the black hole of time that ticked away without their consent. A morbid pastry, rotted from the inside out, filled now only with maggots and mold.

That is all Bucky can see, can feel, these days. The tart aftertaste on his tongue of all the words he could never speak to Steve, the longing marred by endless emptiness of the life he'll never get back, the dull sting to his fingers, where the skin creases beneath each knuckle, where blood had seeped out and stained along that 35th postcard.

Almost three years, exactly. Five words, always. Only, one different. One small speck of a difference on Bucky's wavey and wobbling timeline. All of those specks of time, spotting the beautiful 'What Ifs' that had been blotted out, stains only left behind of all that could have been for him.


	11. Eleven

_**"I've been gone so long** _

_**I can barely say** _

_**All I know is now I wanna stay"** _

 

* * *

 

 

There, curled back against the cold concrete of lived in buildings, Bucky let his eyes flutter open. Morning sun settled down into late afternoon hues, soft winds cooling the air and rustling leaves coarsely along the concrete surface by his feet. Bucky lets his eyes focus on the openness of the mid-fall sky.

Blue. Clear. Cloudless. Familiar. A stretch of blue that was asking to swallow him whole.

A flicker of soft corners and perforated edges scratching along his elongated neck, scritching at the thicker beard hairs growing there. His aching fingers reached, curling around familiar cardstock.

Glossy photograph on the front, no scratch marks from any postal services. Pristine. A captured moment of the Brooklyn Bridge. A place Bucky always spoke of, a symbol that told him home would always be there. But, that home fell off a train decades ago. And crashed into an icy ledge somewhere in the middle of nowhere. And froze and refroze and killed and killed for so long.

Home died when Bucky died.

But, this...this postcard, the 36th postcard...one for every month...for exactly three years...for all the time Bucky took off with whatever remnants of his mind he had left. 36 months without anything. No home. No family. No nothing. A forced restart.

36 months where Steve knew where Bucky had been, all along, and never pulled him back to him. Bucky, desperate for that gravity to trap and orbit Bucky around that same golden sun that is Steve...unable to find the strength to reach his own arms out across the space and find Steve.

Instead, he had been left flailing, tipping head over heels over head over heels for all eternity, fading further and further into the unknown regions of the universe, lost, for no one to ever find him again.

Except, Steve had. Month after month after month. For three years.

Steve had been quietly reaching for Bucky. All this time. And, Bucky had been so lost in the aftermath of all this world had taken from him, he couldn't see the guiding light that had always illuminated his way.

His Steve.

Not this new version. No. His version. The one where Bucky had existed. The one where Bucky was safe.

The one where Bucky was home.

Bucky traced his flesh fingers across the glossy photograph one more time, fingers trembling as they curled to turn the postcard back over.

"Come back to me, Bucky."

Five words. Always five words. Never anything different. Always five words. But, these last two pieces, lost middle parts, of a puzzle started so long ago, finally settling into their places, completing the picture that had been begging to be seen.

36 pieces and vivid memories, placed so carefully together, all these years apart, all those decades between, finding their perfect counterparts to lock into place and show the world a small fragment of beauty it had been without for so long.


	12. Twelve

_**"Has it been too long** _

_**Since I went away** _

_**'Cuz I've been trying to find the words** _

_**But, I can barely say"** _

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky's knees trembled as he stepped off the sidewalk, feeling the rigidity of those same Brooklyn streets he used to run up and down on with a scrawny blonde kid, smiles wide, stretched over the bruised and bloodied and sun loved skin. Streets that held so many memories that wanted to crash violently and gently into Bucky all at once.

The duct taped toe on his left boot hit the bottom step. Five steps that led up. Five. Five words that helped lead Bucky home. Five. Always five. Five was the age Bucky was when he first met that toothless spark of life that would grow and come to engulf every fiber of his being. A golden warmth that would wrap it's beautiful tendrils of fire and electricity and wonder and love around Bucky.

Age five and finding out the world could burst to life in just a moment, in just a smile.

The steps were uneven, some rubble broken off, at the fourth step.

Four. The age Steve was when Bucky wrapped his arms around his shoulders and promised endless friendship. Parts broken and toppled over, just like the tiny blonde that had no front teeth, blood drying on his chin and a laugh that could wash away the worst nightmares from Bucky's mind. The fourth step. Four.

Three. Step three. Solid in it's construction. Three. Three years from when Steve first reached out, telling Bucky he was still there, still here, home. Three. Three years for Bucky to find the strength again that Steve could build up within Bucky without pushing. Being the silent, steady rock Bucky sometimes needed to crash onto before he could find his own footing again.

Two. Second step. Second step from the top. Two. Always has been just him and Steve. Them two. Never one without the other. A line that never ended. A line that could never end. Two points that came crashing into one another and set out on their own timeline. Together.

Top step. One. Last and final step. One. One place, one heart, one soul that could bring Bucky back to where he needed to be. One last step that needed to be taken, even on shaking legs.

Five steps. Five uneven and some parts slightly broken, but all leading up to a place Bucky needed to be.

Standing. Hands both in tight fists, one metal hand bending down the edges and creasing along the last puzzle piece of what Bucky needed, the five words, now different, telling Bucky everything he ever needed to know...to have...to hear.

The other hand...

Raised up high, inches left to knock on the door that had been keeping Bucky from home for so long...

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own these boys.  
> Just want them to eventually hug or smile.
> 
> Come say hi - rancidrat86.tumblr.com


End file.
